


Speed Writing Prompts

by minusxero



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, speedwriting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3318659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minusxero/pseuds/minusxero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My friends and I get together every month or two to do speed writing. The basic premise is this: We all gather, grab a newspaper, flip to a random page and blindly select a sentence. That sentence is the beginning of our stories. We then have 45 minutes to write.</p><p>These are my collected stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Remembrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Taylor remembers the years he and Dimebag spent together, conjuring images of debauchery and brotherhood."

Taylor remembers the years he and Dimebag spent together, conjuring images of debauchery and brotherhood. Finally settling on one thought, he turned to his friend.

“The railroad worker?” Taylor posed it as a question, but really it was more an answer to a thought unspoken.

Darren, known to his friends as Dimebag, barked out in laughter. “That old codger. Jesus Christ.” Dimebag coughed a bit, then reached for his water. “What was it, like 3AM in the morning?”

The man sitting across from him nodded slowly. “It was something like that. We had been drinking something fierce. I want to say it was cider and whiskey…”

“Fireball,” Dimebag clarified. “The drink was called Angry Ball. Angry Orchard and Fireball whiskey. Tasted like fuckin’ Christmas.”

“Right,” Taylor nodded. “But that had nothing to do with the railroad worker. We stumbled out of the bar-”

Darren shook his head vehemently. “We were at your house, dumbfuck. You had just turned 21 and bought a shitload of alcohol to celebrate. I can’t believe you can’t remember this,” he responded with conviction. His eyes narrowed accusingly. “How could you forget? Did you get high without me again?”

“Negative, oh wise rememberer of days past” Taylor answered. He leaned back in his chair in contemplation. Taylor opened his mouth to say something, then shut it just as quickly. A few moments of silence filled the air as Taylor gathered his words. Dimebag took the time in stride, allowing the thoughts of those younger days to expand in his imagination. It was after a minute that Dimebag himself decided to break the silence.

“We were out on the tracks that night,” he started, a glaze starting to set upon his eyes. “You, me, and Trevor. Drunk and ornery kids, we were. I had a joint or three rolled up and they were all lit like Christmas trees.” Dimebag shook his head ruefully. “The trail of smoke left in our wake could’ve been a one-way ticket to hell.”

Taylor smiled at the memory. “I saw the stars up in the sky and thought-”

“Oh fuck! The aliens are upon us! Someone get Will Smith up in this fucker, WELCOME TO EARF!” Dimebag howled at the thought. “But that wasn’t you. That was Travis. You were all quietlike, contemplating the Universe and Time and Space and shit.”

The grin on Taylor’s face faded ever so slightly. “Of course. How could I forget. But we’re digressing from the point. The railroad worker. Remember him?”

“How could I forget? That old codger. Imagining the look on his face, oh it was priceless. Could you imagine being in his shoes? Just minding his business, smoking a cigarette and adjusting arrival times at the station. And in the distance, he hears loud-as-fuck young people, shouting Ludacris lyrics into being.” Dimebag stopped a moment. “It WAS Ludacris, right? I think it was Ludacris. What was that song…”

Taylor thought for a beat. “Move bitch, get out the way-”

“GET OUT THE WAY BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!”

“Just that. Just the chorus for like, eons.”

“And then when we came into view…”

“It was just three little white CHILDREN.”

“We must’ve looked like it to him,” Taylor remarked. “George was something like, 50-something years old, right? The guy had wrinkles for days.”

“His wrinkles had wrinkles,” Dimebag confirmed. “And THOSE wrinkles were trying to look youthful with anti-aging cream.”

“You always had a way with words,” Taylor murmured.

Dimebag beamed. “Of course I did,” he said. “I was the only one of us to amount to something.”

“Yeah… do you remember what he said when we were finally up to the station?”

“He said… I think he said… I actually can’t recall.”

Taylor smirked. “Hey you youngbloods,” he started, an artificial rasp in his voice. “Shut the hell up before I smack y’all upside the head.”

Dimebag grinned in response. “Oh, he said the wrong shit that night. Tim was in a fury. He ran the bitch up like nobody’s business.”

Contemplating, Taylor closed his eyes. “It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

“You bet it wasn’t!” Dimebag grunted. “I’ve never seen him move so fast before. Just, that rage, man. Just ran up on him and knocked him the fuck out.”

“You stayed back at first,” Taylor recalled. “It was probably a few minutes until you jumped in.”

“Well you gotta have your friends’ back, right?” he countered. “We fucked that dude up GOOOOOOOOOD lemme tell ya. Trevor did a number on that fucker. I don’t think he was breathing after we was done with ‘im.”

Taylor sighed. “He wasn’t. He was dead on his back by then.” His mood sobered a bit.

“Man, those was some good times,” Dimebag remarked. “Where is that dude, anyways? Haven’t seen him in ages.”

“He’s around,” Taylor replied. “I’m sure you’ll see him soon.”

“It’s been so long,” murmured Darren. “I can barely remember his name now. Trevor? Travis? No wait,” Darren nearly stood up. “Taylor! That was his name! Son of a bitch, where the fuck is that guy, John?”

Taylor shrugged uselessly. “You know my cousin, dude. He’s just in and out these days.”

“Right,” Dimebag whispered. His eyes still slightly glazed, Darren snapped back to reality. “John, remember the railroad worker?”

Taylor choked a bit. “Yeah man, why don’t you tell me all abo-”

“Excuse me sir,” the officer behind him interrupted. “Time’s up. Visiting hours are over.”

Taylor stood up, trembling. He grabbed his cane with one hand, holding the phone receiver in the other. “I’ve gotta go now, Dimebag.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the old bearded man across the glass responded. “I got shit I need to do anyways. I’ll see you around, John.”

“Of course,” Taylor replied.

He walked out.


	2. Rent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "In between calls, he waited in his downtown apartment."

In between calls, he waited in his downtown apartment. When he wasn’t talking on the phone, the living space was devoid of sound. Every so often, he could hear the muffled thud of a door or the stumbling giggles and footsteps of drunk residents outside in the hallway. To Lewis, those sounds were an eerie reminder that his personal tragedy was but background noise to so many other lives. Depending on the person, he wasn’t even that.

Lewis sighed, looking at the picture on the nightstand. Seeing the bright and happy faces staring back at him made the dim lighting of the bedroom so much darker. Vision growing hazy, he reached for the phone without breaking eye contact with the people in the frame. Much like how he felt, they frozen in time, immortalized on cheap office paper. For the first time he noticed that the colors bled into each other, a defect caused by either the old inkjet printer that resided in his office or the water in his eyes. Or both.

Forcing himself to look away, Lewis pulled up the contact list on his phone and went to the next name on the list. Mom The Sequel. God, he thought. This is going to be hard.

Lewis selected the name and hit the call button after a moment’s trepidation. As the phone played a ringback tone of Earth, Wind & Fire, he grabbed for the pack of cigarettes on the other side of the bed. It took several tries, as there were a few already-empty packs littered about. The phone call went to voicemail as he found the target of his search.

“You have reached the voice mailbox of 310-459-9360. Allison Graham is unavailable to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone or press pound for more options.”

The following beep followed in time with the lighting of the cigarette. For a few seconds, Lewis sat in silence while taking a drag and gathering himself.

“Hey Allie,” he started. An exhale of smoke lead into a sigh. “It’s Lewis. I’m sure you’ve probably heard by now and I’m sorry for not contacting you first. I’ve been going down my phonebook alphabetically. Prioritizing isn’t the most prominent skill I have, you know this.”

Another drag of the cigarette. “Something happened tonight. Kris… Kristen was taken to the hospital tonight.”

The words came out of his mouth as the memory flooded his vision like a wave.

“We went out to see a musical.” They were in the theatre, watching a production of RENT. Her face glowed with glee as the actors on stage sang of Christmas bells, protests, and love in polyphonic harmony. “I know you’re against the whole theatre scene, but she took to it like a fish to water. You should’ve seen the look in her eyes.” Back in the nosebleed section of the theatre, Lewis and Kristen sat enraptured. As the singing crescendoed towards a chaotic climax, Kristen had slumped back into her seat suddenly.

Absentmindedly, Lewis ashed his cigarette and stifled a sob. “She fell unconscious. They called an ambulance and took her to get checked out.” The ride itself was a tumultuous blur of motion. Paramedics attaching things to Kristen as she lay on the gurney. Lewis asking questions and not receiving answers. They were busy trying to help his Kris, he knew, but being in the dark was the worst part.

“It was something with her heart,” he clarified to the silence of voicemail. The doctor in the waiting room came to him after an hour of pacing. She was an older woman, with lines on her face that indicated a lot of smiling. Happy lines. Those lines would not be getting any deeper.

“I was able to go see her. God, it hurt. Seeing her there, but not.” He took another drag and recalled Kris in the hospital room, breaths gasping into an oxygen mask. The incessant beeping a constant percussion in his memory. “She didn’t look like she was in pain. She wasn’t awake for any of it.”

“I know how much you cared for her. And so soon after Jean… I don’t know what to do. I’m so lost. I just… I don’t know.” An exhale of smoke.

He sat in the hospital room in silence holding Kristen’s hand. Her small, delicate hand. Tears fell then, as they did in the apartment. Lewis felt the dam start to break.

“I love you like my own mother,” he stated through ragged breaths. “You know how my parents are. I can’t… as much as it breaks my heart to say it, you’re the only thing I have left now. But you have to know.”

“Please call me back when you can. My little girl… your granddaughter is dead. I’m so sorry.” Lewis quickly hung up before falling back onto the bed, breaking into tears yet again. The cigarette burnt to its end, he stared again at the picture at his nightstand.

Lewis, Jean and Kris. Husband, wife and child. Husband and child. Husband.


End file.
